Reflections_WALS Conference
Being in Hong Kong and away from home and school. I found it easier to focus and benefitted much from the trip. Upon reflection, I think my learning may not be as much if I were distracted by other matters in school and at home back in Singapore.
I attended a total of 5 keynote speeches and 4 parallel sessions during the conference.
The parallel sessions served to confirm that we have been moving in the correct direction and that many of the things shared are not new but may be useful modifications. This further confirms the need for platforms like Lesson Study for teachers to improve professionally and to help their students. With the progress made in the educational scene in some other countries, we should not shortchange our teachers or our students.
From the first keynote speaker, Professor Ference Marton, I learnt the difference between Lesson Study and Learning Study. He mentioned The Theory of Variation which is the main difference between Lesson Study and Learning Study. He also mentioned the importance of a conducive environment to make learning possible as we cannot make a person learn. The Master-Apprentice model where the learner learns through experiencing the process and generating the product was highlighted. As much as possible, getting the learners to learn through experience enhances the learning. In SE Asian countries, the focus for lessons is on the content and practice makes perfect. In the East, the emphasis is on how the content is organised whereas in the west, the emphasis is on how learning is organised. According to Professor Marton, giving learners all possibilities (instances and non-instances) will lead them to understand better. Therefore, the way the content is organised is very important. I agree with him. I think we should organise the content first and then think about the tools to bring about the learning of the content.
I am inclined to think that the Theory of Variation works for some lessons but not all. In this aspect, Lesson Study seems better suited for my teaching and learning purpose as it is more versatile without any particular theory. I feel it is better to have the choice to conduct lessons with different approaches rather than just one. As confirmed by one of the participants on this trip, she found herself lost during a parallel session when the Theory of Variation was applied.
The second keynote speaker, Professor Sato, emphasised on the post-lesson study reflection which I realised is most important in the spirit of lesson study.
When I was involved in my first lesson study in school, I think we emphasised more on the lesson planning stage than the reflection part. It could also be due to the inexperience of the teachers involved as it was the first time we were trying out the lesson study and might have problems doing the post-lesson study portion effectively. I believe it should improve with practice. I also agreed with Professor Sato about teaching as getting students to make connections. This will make their learning meaningful.
The fourth keynote speaker, Professor John Elliot, emphasised that Lesson Study is an approach for assessment for learning. He seemed at first to paint a bleak picture for Lesson Study as something thatv is time-consuming and not efficient but went on to say that it is actually beneficial and worth the time. I suppose we have to try out Lesson Study to understand and believe that it is really workable. It is probably the buying in of teachers that needs more consideration. We should design the experience to be a fruitful one so that the teachers will be convinced. I feel that Lesson Study is a good platform for a bottom up approach and more ownership on the part of the teachers involved. What we need is to provide the structure, like time-tabled time, and the available resources or know where to find resources to make the experience worthwhile.
The fifth keynote spreaker, Professor Lo Mun Ling, emphasised on the importance of the Theory of Variation for more powerful teaching and learning. Students need to experience the variation to remember. I too believe that only through experience can the learning be more impactful, both for teachers and students. So we must design the inclusion of Lesson Study for teachers to experience it to understand it. If done well, the buying in would be easier. We must also let teachers know that the lessons may not be perfect so if there are problems in the lesson, it does not mean that the Lesson Study research lesson is unsuccessful. Having a group of teachers own the lesson also makes it more palatable as the lesson is co-owned, resulting in less stress for the teachers.
I think I learnt the most from the third keynote speaker, Dr Makoto Yoshida. He gave a really clear pictue as to what Lesson Study is. He mentioned about sustainability of a high quality of teaching, nurturing a yearn for learning and having a high expectation of learning. Besides that, I feel sustainability of any initiatives, like Lesson Study, is also a challenge. I believe that Lesson Study is a really good tool for professional development and hope it is sustainable. Anyway, it has been in existence in Japan for such a long time already. It must have its virtues to be able to do that. I must also keep in mind that Lesson Study is not for the sake of creating the perfect lesson as there is no such lesson especially with different learners and changing environment. It is also not a Research and Development system. It is for professional development.
Dr Yoshida described an interesting relationship between Lesson Study (Jyugyokenkyu 授业研究) and Kendo. Shu (守) Ha（破）Ri（离）in Kendo means:
Shu (守) : Study and learn from the master, then acquire the form with understanding
Ha（破） : With the acquisition of the form with understanding, start experimenting your own ideas (break the form). If the experiment went well, start developing your own form
Ri（离） : Break away from the form and create own form
Lesson Study seemed to share some similarities. It is interesting to note that Lesson Study is really in the spirit of development where one improvises and modifies the original to better suit the situation and at the same time acquire better skills.
Lesson Study can be used in a professional learning community
- Working with colleagues
- Learning about content and pedagogy
- Learning about student thinking and understanding
- Engaging in discussion and reflection of teaching and learning in the classroom
- All participating members; teachers, students, parents,etc learn together
- Developing lifelong learners, independent thinkers, problem solvers and researchers
Lesson Study is professional learning not just for lesson development but opportunities for teachers to think deeply about instruction, pedagogy, etc. We need to look at the Big Picture and make learning meaningful. It is essential for us to look into what the students learn before the grade they are in and will learn after so that connections can be made and necessary scaffolding provided.
There are 3 essential elements of Lesson Study.
1. Well-researched and planned lessons with clear hypothesis (research questions)
2. Live observation of the lesson with various participants
3. Focused post-lesson discussion based on participants' observation
I agree that the post-lesson discussion is most important as was mentioned by the second keynote speaker, Professor Sato. We need to factor in more time for that to make the learning fruitful.
I learnt about one important aspect of Lesson Study that we might not have focused on – Kyozaikenkyu （教材研究）- Instructional Material Investigation – which includes textbooks, manipulatives, course of study (standards), educational context, learning goals, equipment, research and case study open houses, ideas gained from research lesson observations, students' prior knowledge, how they learn, etc. I feel it is important for the teachers to provide or be provided with the necessary materials to make informed decisions to ensure the sessions are fruitful and meaningful.
Lesson Study enhances the level of investigation. The collaboration helps deepen understanding of the instructional materials and teachers can influence one another to grow together as lifelong learners.
Kyozaikenkyu involves:
1. Studying
- Subject content and the required sequence (standards, textbooks, teacher manuals, etc - teachers look at entire curriculum)
- Values of activities
- Instructional tools, manipulatives and representations
- Student learning, state of learning, process of thinking and understanding, misunderstanding
2. Establishing
- Clear understanding of the goals and outcomes (need to compare to find out the best materials)
3. Developing
- Instructions, instructional materials, learning activities, manipulatives,etc to help students to achieve the goals
We need to look at where the topic fit within a content standard and how it is related to other topics within the content standard. We need also to look across the different levels and the activities , knowledge and skills required.
A coherent and focused curriulum must not be "a mile wide, an inch deep"
Unfocused, repetitive, unchallenging and incoherent curriculum does not help.
I will be making use of what I learnt in this conference to enhance my POST-IT sessions in school. More information will be provided and more sharing by the level teachers would help with Kyozaikenkyu. The teachers can then suggest possible lessons. We can then discuss the outcomes and impovement after carrying out the suggested lessons. In this way, more professional development will take place rather than just one-way sharing of background knowledge, pedagogy and resources. These will be modified Research Lessons besides at least one actual Research Lesson per level.
Michelle Lim_SKPS
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